Global virus attack clogs up internet
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Traffic on the many parts of the internet slowed dramatically yesterday, the apparent effects of a fast-spreading, virus-like infection in the world's digital pipelines that interfered with web browsing and delivery of email.
Users and news media reported outages or slowdowns in Asia before problems spread to Europe and on to the US. Experts said the latest electronic attack bore remarkable similarities to the "Code Red" virus in 2001 which also brought traffic to a halt on much of the net.
The attack sought out vulnerable computers to infect using a known flaw in the popular database package from software giant Microsoft, called SQL Server – the company later offered a free repairing patch. The attacking code was scanning for victim computers so randomly and so aggressively – sending out thousands of probes each second – that it overwhelmed many internet data pipelines.
"The sheer number of attacks is eating up so much bandwidth that normal operations can't take place," said Marc Maiffre, of eEye Digital Security, whose engineers were among the earliest to study the attack software.
Howard Schmidt, one of President Bush's top cyber-security advisers, said the problem was under control, but, in a remark clearly aimed at Microsoft, added: "People need to do a better job about fixing vulnerabilities."
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments